One way I tried to avoid imposing "my New York" on the students was by inviting along Professor Mike Abbott ’85. A Frankfort, Indiana native, Mike had been my student at Wabash, and when he went off to grad school in theater at Columbia, he solidified our future relationship by sending me a box of New York bagels from H&H on Broadway, the Mecca of bagel connoisseurs.
I thought Mike, a Hoosier with the heart of a New Yorker, would be the perfect co-leader, and I was right. He showed us around Columbia and his former neighborhood, giving us an evocative "beat generation" tour of Kerouac and Ginsberg’s old haunts.
He took a group of students to an underground film festival in the East Village and shared with them one of his favorite Indian restaurants.
I will never forget the night that Mike, senior Steve Perkins, and I sat in The Dish, a diner on Eighth Avenue, until 1 a.m., talking about music, movies, and Wabash because we were just too excited to sleep—and the City was, as always, still awake.